JUST business as usual

[John Dolva]

It's just business.

Traditionally 'capital' uses specific elements to carry out its 'dirty work'. Thats why there is an old term used to describe such element. 'Lumpen'.

---

"lum·pen·pro·le·tar·i·at (lum'p?n-pro'li-târ'e-?t, l?m'-) n.

The lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat. Used originally in Marxist theory to describe those members of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked (edit : should be 'lack') class consciousness.

The underclass of a human population.

[German : Lumpen, pl. of Lump, ragamuffin (from Middle High German lumpe, rag) + Proletariat, proletariat (from French prolétariat)"

---

Quite apart from the derogatory aspect of this classification is what this grouping means to the ruling classes in this case classified as the 'bourgeoise'.

The important concept here is "Of or relating to dispossessed, often displaced people who have been cut off from the socioeconomic class with which they would ordinarily be identified: (eg) lumpen intellectuals unable to find work in their fields."

Tthis group, contrary to other definitions need not be un-intelligent. Rather they may very well contain members who are intelligent sociopaths. They tend to group together in gangs, neo-nazi groups, and such groupings as KKK. They run on emotions, or the feelings they have, for whatever reason, and use rationales that explains their outlook, for example 'christian identity', free masonry, JBS BS, white supremacy, and other produce of right wing 'think' tanks. They are manipulable by more dispassionate ruling powers. With a bit of fear here, a sweetener there, they are willingly ignorant of being herded in directions that suit these manipulators.

Amongst these are the actual foot soldier. The directors, or bankers, rely on connections to them and easily remain anonymous and control leaks. The footsoldiers themselves are controlled by members of their own groupings in more direct ways.

These connections would traditionally be other 'class traitors'. For example the persons without actual ownership of industry, and technically are wage slaves but with aspirations to become members of the ruling elite, act to promote the interests of the ruling class. This puts them in the position of being intermediaries. They may be so as individuals with connections to all classes such as shop keepers, ot they may be employed in the various industries formed to maintain capitalism, such as the FBI or the military..for example Walker.

So. within this philosophical construct are the assassins. The planners, leaders of industry, with whom the germination of the 'idea' lie. The raw detail organisers, persons who depend on income derived from services provided to the planners, and the foot soldiers who quite frankly couldn't give a xxxx as long as it's 'fun'.

There is no need, except where such needs coincide, for any specific government entity or individual to be involved except coincidentally.

One reason I don't think it was for example the 'mob' is because the point, as has been shown by subsequent events, was NOT to kill Kennedy, or to frame Oswald.

The point was to change direction.

If such an important event was to depend on Oswald then the entire show was extremely iffy. How could one possibly know that Oswald was not going to be home sick in bed for example, or gotten involved with a conversation on the doorsteps of the TSBD in full view of photographers. NO. NO. NO!!! To leave such a thing entirely to chance is RIDICULOUS.

Therefore, the fact that there were multiple rifles, sound locii, potential patsies etc is clear indication of a conspiracy that covered all bases. That Kennedy was going to be killed at 12 30 on the 22 november in Dallas was as near a certainty as concievably possible. The multiple directional options available for the investigation to go was essential to deal with the chance elements.

The complicity of elements of the DPD is therefore obvious. Richard Craig is therefore a very important figure. The power structure of the ruling bodies of Dallas contain names of those involved. The elusive DCC members lists and those of other groupings in Dallas at the time must be cross referenced. Those that are in for example the DPD and the KKK need special attention. The fact that no-one has been convicted in this case is due to the involvement of members of those bodies charged to investigate.

Edited September 29, 2005 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

This is where I want to tie in other threads I've been working on.

The racial climate of the south has been largely overlooked. The Emmett Till topic goes along way towards redressing this imbalance. The 'unknown witness' topic shows how the existing testimony seems to paint a picture where Dallas was almost empty of black people. The 'Oswald communist/ socialist?' thread so far has ended up with a picture of Oswald as very much a weak link in a conspiracy SHOULD THAT CONSPIRACY IN ANY WAY DEPEND ON HIM!

The overview of the ENTIRE Dealey Plaza in words and pictures redresses an other imbalance re the prior impression that the northern half of Dealey Plaza was all there was to it. The shot from the left topics highlight other areas of neglect, such as the intriguing omission of Harry D. Holmes from ANY investigation in spite of his deep and obvious involvement in shaping post assassination investigation directions. The various analysis of Kennedys head movements show that this is far from a completed area of investigation. And finally a topic that brought me in to this in the first place. The trail through the air, left by the bullet as shown in the various films.

I am fully aware that for anyone to accept this may involve a radical shift from years of involvement. Not easy. Therefore why should it be hard to creditably question these suggestions?

[Mark Knight]

Plusses and minuses: we have technology to analyze evidence now that was unavailable in 1963-64, yet a lot of the first-generation photos and other direct evidence is no longer available.

I like what you're doing with the "wave" study, i.e., displaced air, whatever you may call it. While the preliminary results don't correspond with my preconceived ideas of what happened, they HAVE opened my mind to other possibilities.

History doesn't occur in a vacuum, as they say. The racial and political climate in the 1950's and '60's are what made the JFK assassination possible. Just last night on PBS I saw a part of a program discussing the racial climate in Selma, Alabama and in Americus, Georgia in 1965...I'd almost forgotten hearing about Americus.

So the changes brought about by the JFK assassination weren't overnight change, by any stretch of the imagination. But the JFK assassination, I believe, was the primary catalyst that accelerated the rate of change. After a brief period ['64-'70] in which the more liberal factions influenced change, there has been a 35-year swing toward the right. I believe the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 became the bracket on the end of the liberal movement in the US, as fewer liberals decided that the change they desired was worth dying for in rounds of indiscriminate gunfire. [ironic, isn't it, that a protest to end the killing of our young men in Vietnam concluded with the killing of young people in Ohio?]

While I won't totally lay the shooting of JFK at the feet of the right [since the evidence, as far as I'm concerned, points in ALL directions, that simply wouldn't be fair], I couldn't help but notice that the response of the right to criticism and activism far too often is violence [Kent State in 1970 and the Democratic National Convention at Chicago in '68 are the two examples that immediately spring to mind]. But to be fair, as left-leaning groups such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers illustrated, violence wasn't solely the tactic of the right. And often it's difficult to keep a balanced perspective when we look back at those days, as it's easy to pick out just those incidents that buttress a particular viewpoint and ignore the other side [a favorite Posner line of argument].

A recent PBS special on Bob Dylan, for example, mentioned that in the opinion of one of the principals interviewed, the folk music trend that allowed Dylan's rise to prominence probably would have come along 5 to 10 years earlier, had the "red scare" years that made stars of Nixon and McCarthy not happened...since many of those "bohemians" who fed the system, such as Pete Seeger, were having their credentials as loyal Americans questioned.

So, in order to properly assess what happened, we must stir all the factors into this cauldron which is history, and then let the final product become what it is, whatever that might be.

I've previously mentioned my own theory, that on November 22, 1963 all the factors--the left, the right, the oil interests, the banking interests, the Bobby Baker mess, the pro- and anti-Castro overtures, the racial and the social upheaval--all reached "critical mass." Had there been no assassination that day, Don Reynolds' testimony before Congress surely would've ended LBJ's career. JFK's own sexual dalliances might've caused his OWN political career to implode. Had evidence of a Castro-led conspiracy been found immediately after the assassination, I believe that Cuba would have been obliterated. Had the assassination not occurred, a lot of the positive legislation that came about in 1964 and 1965 wouldn't have happened, as there would've been no reason for a show of bipartisanship...similar to the polarization of left and right that we see today.

As with a volcano, there was a lot smoldering under the dome, unseen by most, on November 21, 1963. On November 22 came the eruption that caught everyone's attention, and the plumes of smoke generated there are still being seen, though more faintly as time passes. While most of the fallout occurred over the next few years, even today we still see some of the ashes occasionally falling...sometimes unnoticed.

[John Dolva]

Plusses and minuses:  we have technology to analyze evidence now that was unavailable in 1963-64, yet a lot of the first-generation photos and other direct evidence is no longer available.

I like what you're doing with the "wave" study, i.e., displaced air, whatever you may call it.  While the preliminary results don't correspond with my preconceived ideas of what happened, they HAVE opened my mind to other possibilities.

History doesn't occur in a vacuum, as they say.  The racial and political climate in the 1950's and '60's are what made the JFK assassination possible.  Just last night on PBS I saw a part of a program discussing the racial climate in Selma, Alabama and in Americus, Georgia in 1965...I'd almost forgotten hearing about Americus.

So the changes brought about by the JFK assassination weren't overnight change, by any stretch of the imagination.  But the JFK assassination, I believe, was the primary catalyst that accelerated the rate of change.  After a brief period ['64-'70] in which the more liberal factions influenced change, there has been a 35-year swing toward the right.  I believe the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 became the bracket on the end of the liberal movement in the US, as fewer liberals decided that the change they desired was worth dying for in rounds of indiscriminate gunfire. [ironic, isn't it, that a protest to end the killing of our young men in Vietnam concluded with the killing of young people in Ohio?]

While I won't totally lay the shooting of JFK at the feet of the right [since the evidence, as far as I'm concerned, points in ALL directions, that simply wouldn't be fair], I couldn't help but notice that the response of the right to criticism and activism far too often is violence [Kent State in 1970 and the Democratic National Convention at Chicago in '68 are the two examples that immediately spring to mind].  But to be fair, as left-leaning groups such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers illustrated, violence wasn't solely the tactic of the right.  And often it's difficult to keep a balanced perspective when we look back at those days, as it's easy to pick out just those incidents that buttress a particular viewpoint and ignore the other side [a favorite Posner line of argument].

A recent PBS special on Bob Dylan, for example, mentioned that in the opinion of one of the principals interviewed, the folk music trend that allowed Dylan's rise to prominence probably would have come along 5 to 10 years earlier, had the "red scare" years that made stars of Nixon and McCarthy not happened...since many of those "bohemians" who fed the system, such as Pete Seeger, were having their credentials as loyal Americans questioned.

So, in order to properly assess what happened, we must stir all the factors into this cauldron which is history, and then let the final product become what it is, whatever that might be.

I've previously mentioned my own theory, that on November 22, 1963  all the factors--the left, the right, the oil interests, the banking interests, the Bobby Baker mess, the pro- and anti-Castro overtures, the racial and the social upheaval--all reached "critical mass."  Had there been no assassination that day, Don Reynolds' testimony before Congress surely would've ended LBJ's career.  JFK's own sexual dalliances might've caused his OWN political career to implode.  Had evidence of a Castro-led conspiracy been found immediately after the assassination, I believe that Cuba would have been obliterated.  Had the assassination not occurred, a lot of the positive legislation that came about in 1964 and 1965 wouldn't have happened, as there would've been no reason for a show of bipartisanship...similar to the polarization of left and right that we see today.

As with a volcano, there was a lot smoldering under the dome, unseen by most, on November 21, 1963.  On November 22 came the eruption that caught everyone's attention, and the plumes of smoke generated there are still being seen, though more faintly as time passes.  While most of the fallout occurred over the next few years, even today we still see some of the ashes occasionally falling...sometimes unnoticed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Certainly, Mark. However the agent provocateur stance that the COINTELPRO operations took with regards to extremist organisations such as the wethermen and the panthers differed from the monitoring of say the KKK. The FBI and police force, let alone governors and senators were members of these right wing groups. Where are the panthers today?

Kennedy said in the speech he made the evening before Medgar Evers was assassinated (just past midnight) by a KKK sniper in july '63, that the time to ask black people to wait was over. This was a marked change from previous administrations. The ball was rolling. Of course a bipartisan approach emerged. Partly, I argue, in order for anti-segregation elements to keep some degree of control. If one peruses writings on todays activists there appears to be a view that rollbacks are occurring. To jump on the desegregation bandwagon post Kennedy was a wise albeit opportunistic thing to do. It didn't stop the Rodney King affair for example. I feel that MLK and RFK and the subsequent unleashing of gun terror in the streets put the nails in the coffin (for the time being)

These affairs were just as much and possibly mostly aimed at the average good american. It showed where the lines were and the consequences of crossing them. While the Kennedys died, the US citizen was terrorized. The criminals who reap the benefit of this terror of conformity I argue are those that killed JFK.

___________________________________

The Beats, Keorouac, the Bus and LSD is another interesting side to the whole picture, often neglected. Though I have my doubts that Ginsberg was involved . Here's Ginsberg on the Hippie trail in india '62, taking a photo of Cassady on a drive to CA in 63 and an early kool aid acid test pic from 65. John Simkin has an interesting thread going on one of the merry pranksters. Possibly this anti establishment behaviour was a way of protesting. The acid test poster has on the bottom a finger print and on the full poster an arrow directing the cops to note it so they will know who is behind the affair.

Dylan and Ginsberg at Kerouacs grave in '75

Edited September 29, 2005 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Plusses and minuses:  we have technology to analyze evidence now that was unavailable in 1963-64, yet a lot of the first-generation photos and other direct evidence is no longer available.

I like what you're doing with the "wave" study, i.e., displaced air, whatever you may call it.  While the preliminary results don't correspond with my preconceived ideas of what happened, they HAVE opened my mind to other possibilities.

History doesn't occur in a vacuum, as they say.  The racial and political climate in the 1950's and '60's are what made the JFK assassination possible.  Just last night on PBS I saw a part of a program discussing the racial climate in Selma, Alabama and in Americus, Georgia in 1965...I'd almost forgotten hearing about Americus.

So the changes brought about by the JFK assassination weren't overnight change, by any stretch of the imagination.  But the JFK assassination, I believe, was the primary catalyst that accelerated the rate of change.  After a brief period ['64-'70] in which the more liberal factions influenced change, there has been a 35-year swing toward the right.  I believe the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 became the bracket on the end of the liberal movement in the US, as fewer liberals decided that the change they desired was worth dying for in rounds of indiscriminate gunfire. [ironic, isn't it, that a protest to end the killing of our young men in Vietnam concluded with the killing of young people in Ohio?]

While I won't totally lay the shooting of JFK at the feet of the right [since the evidence, as far as I'm concerned, points in ALL directions, that simply wouldn't be fair], I couldn't help but notice that the response of the right to criticism and activism far too often is violence [Kent State in 1970 and the Democratic National Convention at Chicago in '68 are the two examples that immediately spring to mind].  But to be fair, as left-leaning groups such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers illustrated, violence wasn't solely the tactic of the right.  And often it's difficult to keep a balanced perspective when we look back at those days, as it's easy to pick out just those incidents that buttress a particular viewpoint and ignore the other side [a favorite Posner line of argument].

A recent PBS special on Bob Dylan, for example, mentioned that in the opinion of one of the principals interviewed, the folk music trend that allowed Dylan's rise to prominence probably would have come along 5 to 10 years earlier, had the "red scare" years that made stars of Nixon and McCarthy not happened...since many of those "bohemians" who fed the system, such as Pete Seeger, were having their credentials as loyal Americans questioned.

So, in order to properly assess what happened, we must stir all the factors into this cauldron which is history, and then let the final product become what it is, whatever that might be.

I've previously mentioned my own theory, that on November 22, 1963  all the factors--the left, the right, the oil interests, the banking interests, the Bobby Baker mess, the pro- and anti-Castro overtures, the racial and the social upheaval--all reached "critical mass."  Had there been no assassination that day, Don Reynolds' testimony before Congress surely would've ended LBJ's career.  JFK's own sexual dalliances might've caused his OWN political career to implode.  Had evidence of a Castro-led conspiracy been found immediately after the assassination, I believe that Cuba would have been obliterated.  Had the assassination not occurred, a lot of the positive legislation that came about in 1964 and 1965 wouldn't have happened, as there would've been no reason for a show of bipartisanship...similar to the polarization of left and right that we see today.

As with a volcano, there was a lot smoldering under the dome, unseen by most, on November 21, 1963.  On November 22 came the eruption that caught everyone's attention, and the plumes of smoke generated there are still being seen, though more faintly as time passes.  While most of the fallout occurred over the next few years, even today we still see some of the ashes occasionally falling...sometimes unnoticed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mark, to reply to some of your other comments.

What I'm actually suggesting is that Kennedy stepped into a particular political situation and started a process of change. This was taking hold. Therefore what Kennedy was doing was introducing change to the lives of people some of whom found this hard to bear. Their reaction to this was to change Kennedys direction (in this instance to change him into a corpse) This got things back on the previous track, towards a complete dominance of business of government. 'Government for the business, by the business and of the people'. The strife that followed (and the panthers and so on were later reactions to this trend) was the people attempting to take the government back. As of today that has not been successful.

[John Dolva]

Mark, I also have some comments on this paragraph:

"I've previously mentioned my own theory, that on November 22, 1963 all the factors--the left, the right, the oil interests, the banking interests, the Bobby Baker mess, the pro- and anti-Castro overtures, the racial and the social upheaval--all reached "critical mass." Had there been no assassination that day, Don Reynolds' testimony before Congress surely would've ended LBJ's career. JFK's own sexual dalliances might've caused his OWN political career to implode. Had evidence of a Castro-led conspiracy been found immediately after the assassination, I believe that Cuba would have been obliterated. Had the assassination not occurred, a lot of the positive legislation that came about in 1964 and 1965 wouldn't have happened, as there would've been no reason for a show of bipartisanship...similar to the polarization of left and right that we see today."

The reason why there was no evidence of a Castro-led conspiracy, I'm suggesting, is because there was no Castro-led conspiracy.

The purpose of these events were very much targeted at the American public. While presented as a concern for global events, the 'play' being enacted was of the nature of the 'lynching postcards' distributed freely through the society, in order to show : 'this is what will happen to you if you don't behave as we want you to behave'. Thought control.

I agree that a critical mass was being reached. It's interesting at this point to note in reference to the thread of media influence that the Nov 22 issue of Time was heavily devoted to presenting future candidates to the presidential elections : all Republicans, including that a VERY eager Rockefeller, and a sober and measured Nixon, while painting the Kennedy administration as 'grumpy' and 'dissolute'.

The positive legislation was a product of Kennedy's government. The bipartisanship was a product of intense lobbying and not a certainty. Had Kennedy been survived and been reelected in the face of these forces I think he would have remained true to form and seen this legislation through. The difference would have been that the public would have learned an entirely different lesson of how things are done in the Good ole' USA, and the world could have been a different place today.(though I wouldn't have recommended to any one to hold their breath on that one either)

I agree it's important to keep a balance, violence was not just something the right did/do. There TENDS to be a difference though. A gross example would be the killings in Somozas Nicaragua prior to the victory of the Sandinistas. While Somoza and his US sponsored gentlemen would roll drums of petrol out of helicopters onto the suburbs of its opponents and kidnap and torture children, the Sandinista guerillas tended to selectively eliminate with a single clean shot to the head.

_________________________

An interesting document from the sixties is a picture book written by Julian Bond and published in 1967, after he was expelled from the Georgia House of Representatives for opposing the war in Viet Nam.

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/.../Bond/Bond.html

In this document he talks of the violence against black people, including the institutionalised one of killing black people by sending them to war.

Edited September 30, 2005 by John Dolva

[Mark Knight]

I agree with your premise. Charlie Wilson ["What's good for General Motors is good for America"] was a prime proponent of the philosophy during the Eisenhower administration. But what occurred with the recession of '58 showed that this wasn't exactly true.

In the immediate aftermath of WWII, when rationing ended and soldiers came home with pay they hadn't had a chance to spend in 4 years, the economy boomed. Cars and refrigerators and houses were selling like crazy. The Korean War came along in '50, and an American economy that might not have been able to immediately absorb all the returning soldiers in civillian jobs...didn't have to. In '53, Korea was winding down...and, fortuitously for the civillian American economy, the French were handed their hats in Vietnam and the US inherited another combat zone.

Unfortunately, Vietnam didn't crank up quickly enough to dampen the effects of soldiers returning to civillian life. The dampening agent became the baby boom, which took large numbers of women who'd worked in defense plants during WWII and made wives and mothers out of them. While I haven't seen a curve plotted on this subject, I'd wager that when International Harvester finished making M-1 Garands for WWII, the places on the production lines that had been filled by women making guns would have been overrun by returning soldiers making refrigerators and freezers in that same Evansville, IN plant...except that some of the excess potential employees were siphoned off into the military for Korea.

But with the cease-fire signed in Korea in '53, and with Vietnam just a speck on the horizon in comparison to what it became in '68, combined with the depletion of the wartime savings being injected into the economy, a slowdown was inevitable. And when GM sells fewer cars, GM can cut back on expenses by laying off employees. Unfortunately, when that occurs, what's good for General Motors is NOT good for the American economy. [As an aside, given the lead time from design to production in the automobile industry at that time, it's probably a good bet that the Corvair and the Ford Falcon, both introduced as 1960 "economy" models, were a response to economic conditions in the US between about 1955 and 1958.]

Now, it's NOT that JFK was anti-business. But JFK apparently had an ear for the working-class Americans. In fact, at the time of his death his proposed tax cut was bottled up in an uncooperative Congress. His stance on racial integration [interesting how the term has become "desegregation,' which is akin to a double negative in my perception of the term], his stand on nuclear weapons and the newly-signed Test Ban Treaty, his stand on detente with Cuba and the Soviet Union, his stand on the Federal Reserve System, his stand on the oil depletion allowance...these winds of change could indeed be chilling to those who would benefit more from the status quo. In many ways, the Kennedy administration WAS an attempt to wrest control of the government from the old guard and to head in a bold new direction.

Obviously, the "establishment" was threatened ['60's terminology, for those of you who weren't around then]. But was 'the man" threatened enough to commit murder in order to attempt the reversal of this flood of change?

Apparently so.

Edited September 30, 2005 by Mark Knight